


Quickening Hues

by kiimigi



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Suicide Attempt, kinda character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24352276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiimigi/pseuds/kiimigi
Summary: From the Mother of Invention to Iris, home are the empty bases they leave behind, never to be seen again
Relationships: Lavernius Tucker/Agent Washington, The Meta | Agent Maine/Agent Washington
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Quickening Hues

_Valhalla_

As the ice thaws, life begins again.

Wash tracked across the field, the morning air crisp and the grass still wet with dew. The sun had just begun to creep over the ridge of the canyon, bathing their home in pale morning light. The waterfall roared as he passed it.

Once on a particularly hot day, Grif and Tucker had tracked to the top of the cliff and he could barely watch as they hurled themselves off the waterfall, plummeting into the waters below.

Wash looked back at the two bases, identical in every way but colour, tucked safely between rocks and water caught in the cycle of games, all of them strangers to suffering.

He had expected-braced- to be met with ice. But they shifted and made space for him and in turn he bends and softens. He stretched his arms over his head, muscles untensed and relaxed then stretched as he breathed clean air.

How long he had been here? How long since stitches were removed, and he had seen Doc off with an apology. It was so full of life here, he admired the glow of the windows, he mesmerized their dance as they run themselves in circles as the canyon slowly wakes up and he's eventually drawn back by caboose calling him.

He couldn't point to one moment that the ice had started to thaw. They were in the little moments felt but forgotten or overlooked. The good days took him off guard and startled him.

Wash had stumbled on the reds in the middle of trying to steal their flag. Wash was about to let them go when Tucker swore and vaults over the sofa in all seriousness, bolting after them.

He had taken them all down easily of course. Holding his knife by the blade, he threw it with expert precision and pinned Simmons to the wall with a shriek. Tucker stopped with a lopsided smile as he jogged up to them, “holy shit dude. That was awesome.”

In prison, he had always dreamed of being somewhere else, someplace nice, somewhere he could see for miles. Who knew he’d end up here?

There was something familiar about this place. It was only days later did he recognise that this place was so similar to everything he once had and so easily lost.

Then he's suddenly looking back at the bases through the rear-view mirror, their bases growing rapidly smaller and smaller as they speed away from Valhalla, Carolina a cold spot at his side.

It had startled him that when the time came, he hadn’t wanted to leave that place. But he looks to the people around him as Carolina gave him the rare opportunity to right one of his many wrongs.

So he says goodbye to this place where the ice first thawed.

* * *

_Mother of Invention_

Moi had been bleak. It had been cold unyielding lines and the constant hum of engines at night and that particular smell of recycled air, surrounded by the cold expanse of space, cold and swallowing.

They had been tossed and scrapped along, covered in wounds that would turn into scars if they were so lucky.

He's has two sets of memories from this time.

One is his own. Warmer of the two. Of skateboarding through the corridors and secret liquor hidden in their locker room.

And a second much colder set of memories, one that is, he’s sure of that now, not truly his. of being in a cold lonely room which housed a broken man.

Wash bounced his leg, feeling a swirl of excitement and dread tangle in his gut. Maine came up behind him, resting his hands on his shoulders.

Screams come next. His eyes blew wide at the exquisite pain. He could feel it in his finger, in his feet, in his mouth. Pounding through his skull and ribs and behind his eyes. It felt as if someone had ripped his heart out along with everything else. And he's falling and falling and-

York and North had walked in on him with a gun in his mouth, tears streaming down his face. Shaking so much he eyed York as he approached him with palms up. York caught the hammer of the gun as he pulled the trigger, tackling him the ground, North kicking the gun away as they struggled on the ground, York pinning Wash's hands to his chest as he wept.

* * *

_Ancient Alien Temples_

“Do you want to take him?” it was an innocent question when they were holed up in the desert.

“No” They both said too quickly which earned looks from everybody. They had been so eager once.

Epsilon and Wash don’t talk. He expected a coldness from Epsilon but on the rare occasion they did talk it was so damn familiar and soft and careful like they were afraid to hurt each other all over again and mess it up in the same way.

“You don't understand, I ripped his mind apart. I found the medical reports, it was fucked up. It took him years to come back from that” He had come back from his rounds. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he was coming back from his patrol when he heard Epsilon’s voice, echoing in the temple and he was stunned still “I gave him everything. All the trauma and hurt and pain that the Alpha ever felt. I took it all and pushed it into him. I didn’t mean to. I just- I just needed somebody to know. But the connection worked both ways." Wash's breath stopped. He hadn't known about that "He was just the rookie everybody took care of and i came along and I fucked him up."

“That doesn’t excuse what he’s done” Tucker said

“No, it doesn’t.” Epsilon said “But he’s come along and he’s trying to make it better the best he knows how, you know that. What more can he do?” He sounds slightly terrified. Epsilon is looking at him blinking in front of his face. He startles a little but Epsilon flicker a bit dimmer and he knows he doesn’t hate him too.

* * *

_Freelancer Offsite Storage Facility_

Wash stared at his shoes as he sat to the side. He wondered if he should be in there with Carolina and Epsilon. He wondered if he would regret it more if he went in or didn’t?

It felt like he’s dissociating to Mars and back, so he didn’t even realise when Caboose and Tucker sat beside him. Tucker’s hand slides over the back of his neck, covering scars and ports and he breathes. It helps. A little.

He finally looked up when Carolina returns. Epsilon doesn’t make a appearance.

“Is it done?” Wash said standing up. His eyes widen as Carolina pulls his down for a stiff hug before he sagged. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

_Crash Site Bravo_

After the Director, Wash felt exhausted and he’s eager for home and to get back to empty days again.

But the universe had other plans for them.

Their world changed quickly again-quite literally. The ship lurched beneath their feet, and they are tipped forward off they’re feet. There is a blur of screams and red of the sirens and red of fire as they are thrown around like pin balls as the world turned upside down then side ways and then crashing.

It wasn’t the first time he had been in a crash but the second drew up memories of the first.

He still has large memory gaps from that time, but he remembers staggering out of med bay in a hospital gown as sirens blare, disorientated and clueless. Then there was ear piercing screech as the ground falls out beneath him, he clambers to catch hold of anything but there’s nothing but air and he’s falling.

Pain spiked through his leg and he screamed as debris crush his leg. He cries out for anybody but his just chokes on smoke.

Wash is fighting flash backs for the next few days which leaves him short.

Then Carolina was gone. Just gone. The suddenness rocks him.

The last time the ship went down he had lost Carolina too. Funny that.

He’s so focused on keeping them alive that he doesn’t have the energy left to care if they’re happy about it. No Grif we’re rationing. Tucker you’re not done yet, keep jogging.

He throws up a crude shelter up, just enough to keep the rain out. Sarge wouldn’t even let him touch the red base.

Tucker wasn’t making it any easier for him. Why can’t he see he’s just trying to help? He’s digging in his heels and throwing it back into his face with heat.

You're a paranoid, ex-special ops guy who's used to being betrayed on a weekly basis. Not much of a riddle Wash

Maybe he was right. Wash dragged his hands down his face. But he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling at the back of his head that something horribly is going to happen.

It’s always one thing after another and he doesn’t know when he’s going to stop being thrown around like a pinball. It’s been years now.

Wash threw himself into fixing the radio, focusing on something he knew, holding onto something he could control with a death grip.

Caboose wondered up while he was working, moaning in distress like he usually did nowadays.

“What’s wrong, Caboose?”

“Gone!” He wailed. He had been a penduluming between depressed and mopping and loudly being depressed and mopping. Tucker made a groan which probably meant that he had been dealing with this for some time and he’s running out of tolerance.

“Gone” Caboose whined a little sadder. “I can’t find it.”

“Explain” Wash turned to Tucker.

“It’s his stupid stretchy string thing” Tucker said “Church gave it to him back in Blood Gulch. He used it to let him fidget with it and distract him. But it’s your problem now, fearless leader” Tucker said and leaves to makes himself scarce.

Wash sighed before rallying and turning to Caboose who was currently looking under a rock. He couldn’t really blame Caboose, none of them had been expecting crash landing out of the sky.

“Have you been looking for it all day?” Wash said gently as he could manage as he came to rest his hands-on Caboose’s shoulders.

“I’ve checked everywhere” Caboose said sulkily.

“Maybe you left it back in Valhalla?" Caboose doesn’t look convinced. Well, it wasn’t very convincing. He then remembers seeing the brute shot again after expecting never to see it ever again "Or you know maybe it will show up eventually on its own.”

Caboose sat next to him and he got back to work on the radio and fiddles with a bolt as he leaned heavily against him.

“Like Church will?”

“Yeah, like Church will”

* * *

_Chorus_

They've lost a lot along the way. His skateboard. Cabooses fidgeter. Friends and family. Sometimes things get lost, but sometimes they are taken.

None of them had been prepared for this, the end hurtling towards them.

Their reunions are never happy.

When Carolina comes back from the dead, she dragged him out of peace.

When he sees Tucker after months of separation, they are immediately stabbed in the back.

At the end of it all, Wash stopped when he saw the Meta’s armour, a glimmer of hope fluttered in his chest.

Then Tucker goes down as the armour shuts down around him and Wash tore him out of it. Caboose was stumbling around looking around himself “Where’s Church? You lost Church. “

The truth hadn’t settled in just yet and he couldn’t let grief flood him. All he could focus on was get them away and get their cuts and bruises sorted and find somewhere safe where nobody knew to find them.

Grief had made Tucker venomous and he had slapped Wash’s hand away and exploded on him, anything to distract from the pain in his chest. Wash killed Church and Wash hurt Doughnut and Wash hunted Epsilon, Wash was the worst thing to ever happen to them.

It was only much later did they finally cry. Carolina and him away from the base, standing on a hill looking down at it all that they had nearly lost. Again.

They stay where they’d fallen, his bead in her chest, his shoulders shook as he broke down. Carolina gripped his back as she shared in his sorrow and the overwhelming relief that they didn’t lose more.

Wash wouldn’t listen to the recording for a long time and never all at once. Tears slowly slipped down his cheeks as he listens to words he did not deserved. Epsilon talked about his skateboard, about the Alpha and Allison, and at the very end, he had thanked him.

* * *

_Iris_

The frost came again, and they had to start anew from the ground up. Shyly, the first flowers pock out of the snow.

“What’s this?” Wash said when he saw Tucker. It wasn’t much, Tucker had spread out a mat with a bottle of Doughnut’s too sweet cider. But the night is cool on Iris and the bugs chirp softly in the bush and at night, you could see the neighbouring planets in the sky.

They drape on the ground, taking turns to take a swig out of the bottle. Both of them feeling lighter and looser and younger. It’s the sort of night that usually lead to something further but tonight they don’t get past kissing, going only so far as kissing the neck with no rush to go any further.  
It’s the sort of night Wash said a little too much. He said things that he usually could only talk to Carolina with but the cider had made him looser and the words flow. Maine had always rolled his eyes at his pillow talk.

It was on a night like this he had confessed his fear of heights. Tucker had barked laughter when told him.

“you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re a super solider. A fear of heights is such an ordinary thing” He said in disbelief. It wasn’t the height. It was the falling that terrified him even before Freelancer. Seeing two of your friends falling backwards doesn’t really give any initiative to get over that.

Without meaning to he tells Tucker of the times he and Maine would sneak beer onto MOI, sitting against the wall, bottles balanced on their knees in that small room they shared.

“Wait” Tucker said sitting up. In the dark he could see Tucker’s head ticking. He immediately regrets saying a word and he bites his tongue. There’s a judgement in his eyes “You and the Meta were a thing! holy shit! Does that mean I’ve been kissing the lips that have been around the Meta’s di-”

“Maine!” Wash snapped

Tucker barked with laugher “What’s the difference?”

Wash ripped his hands through his hair, laced his hands over the back of his neck as bile roses in his throat.

"Dude are you okay?"

"You weren’t the only one that lost someone at Sidewinder" Wash snapped. The difference is they got Epsilon back. The difference is that he didn’t get to be sad about it. That he had to pretend he wasn’t sick when he saw Meta go over that edge even though he had given Sarge the means. Because the Meta was the bad guy and it was a good thing he fell.

There is a separation in his mind between the Meta and Maine. He knows Maine was gone long before he fell over the cliff, but it still hurt. Maybe a part of him thought there was still some hope that Maine could still come back from whatever Sigma did to fuck up his head just like Wash had come back from Epsilon.

"Wash!" Tucker called after him as he stormed away and back to base.

He didn’t know what he and Maine had been. People didn’t expect them to get along. They were too different. Maine was a brute and Wash was the rookie who didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. But they were partners. They trusted each with their lives. They looked out for each other and fought back to back and pulled the other from the fire. Was it so strange they would gravitate to each other for comfort too?

* * *

_Chorus_

Fighting over Maine turned to fighting over Alpha then Epsilon which turned into fighting about everything. Wash slammed the door behind him tugging his jacket on and shoes still halfway off. They’ve fought and bickered all the back in Valhalla where they first learnt nobody could not look ridiculous storming out of field, stomping off in their walk of shame to find a secluded corner to fume as the other hurled insults until their out of ear shot.

When they landed in Chorus for the foreseeable future, they agreed to live in a communal together just a force of habit. It’s like MOI but better in every way and the way Carolina looks she feels it too. They all appear for wine and cheese hour when Doughnut’s in town and Doughnut invited Wash up to his farm during harvest and that sounds so nice.

Wash walked the streets of Chorus like he used to until he’s calmed down enough and sits on the side of the road and calls Carolina.

He’s known Carolina for much longer than reds and blues. Wash’s first instinct when shit hits the fan will always be to look to Carolina first, because she was still his boss. Carolina was the one that bullies him into taking meds.

He goes out drinking with Carolina and Doughnut sometimes. He goes with Tucker when they’re not fighting and whatever reds want to tag along. Doughnut uses it as an excuse to dress up and an excuse to dress Wash up too because Wash still can’t say no to him.

Grif told Wash he and Tucker go drinking sometimes but all they do is sit and bitch about their significant others.

“You two guys are okay, right?” Doughnut asked touching Wash’s arm. Wash is stewing and getting lost in his head and looking in his drink.

“Don’t worry about it, that just how you and Tucker are" Carolina said because she gets it. "You have a special relationship."

“Grif and Simmons fight all the time too” Wash finally said

“That’s different” Doughnut said, “you didn’t spend years watching them pine."

“I trust him with my life” Wash said. That must count for something at the very least.

"What was it this time?" Doughnut said

"It’s about Maine" Wash said before turning to Carolina "Sorry, I know you don’t like thinking about it."

"It’s fine" she said flicking the lighter in her hand and he slides his hand into hers and squeezes

* * *

_General Doyle General Hospital_

They find sometimes along the way too.

Tucker wasn’t the first person he saw when woke up. Nor was it Carolina or any of the Reds or Blues. There’s no cards he was sure would be there if they had come.

Locus was the first person he saw.

He tries to get up, but Locus pushed him back down. He reached his hand up and tentatively touches the gauze there and squeezed his eyes shut as he pressed his head back. He can’t not think about Maine. He can’t talk only little grunt and whine until finally Locus lifted his head and it hurts but Locus helped him drink a little before he flopped down again.

The last time, he had been in recovery for so long. He had waited for anybody to come and get him. They never did. He never got to say goodbye to any of them. He knows how Tucker feels in that regard.

His nerves feel raw it makes him restless and jumpy. He’s more grateful than he can say that Locus stays a while. He doesn’t think he could bare going through his again alone.

They walk the hospital grounds together and Locus tells him about what he’s been doing to fill the silence while Wash’s throat is still too sore to speak but he does hum tp show he’s listening.

Wash stopped suddenly looking around himself and goes rigid. Locus helped Wash sit on a bench, hand on his arm and back.

“Where’s Tucker” He had a nagging feeling that he was supposed to tell him something important, but he just can’t…remember. Locus gives him a look he can’t read. “Wait, what you doing here? I thought you told us we wouldn’t catch you?"

He would be waiting a long time for them to come. But for now, all he can do is hope.

Then they go on an adventure that erases all his progress because he’s hurt all over again as if no time had passed at all and his throat is throbbing again.

When he woke up for the second time, they are all there for him. Tucker has a little white board for him just like Maine used to have and Locus stands in the corner of the room and he settled in for a tough few months

* * *

_Many Years in the Past..._

The radio plays softly in their small house filled with warmth and all the sounds and scents of home. It’s quiet here. There’s an apple tree in the yard and a golden field that sways and rustle in the wind. His work is stretched before him and the weight of the world hangs off his shoulders. Thoughts slip through his fingers, the answer just out of reach as he tears at his roots. He has to get this done.

A weight drapes over his back making his lose his train of through but the anger he feels fizzle out as quickly. He tilts back and tells her so. She curls her arms around his shoulder, her hair tickling his neck.

"I think I’m pregnant” she said. His world stops and reshapes itself in that moment and he feels so full. “We’re going to have a girl”.

The fields surrounding their little home stretched far. But somewhere far away from this house bombs whistle as they fall, fires burn, soldiers fall and there are battles to be fought.

But here in this little house bathed in sunlight away from suffering, a husband hugs his wife he loved with everything. He picks her up kissing her. This was the start of everything, and he hopes their little girl is more like her mom than him.


End file.
